Matsuri-tastic!!

('Matsuri' means festival)

I went to a total of 3 festivals during this long weekend, one per day, and they were all weirdly and wonderfully different from each other! Lovin' it.

Festival No. 1 - The Johzenji Street Jazz Festival in Sendai

Over 700 acts performing on 40-odd stages, big and small, dotted around the whole of the city centre, and not just jazz, but rock, indie, R&B, acoustic, spanish guitar, blues, alternative, gospel, country, folk...it was more like a live music festival. And of course, being a Japanese festival, it was all very well organised, everything was very orderly, lots of volunteers, free maps and guides, free shuttle buses, and best of all, the whole thing was free!










And of course, being a Japanese festival, it had to have the usual festival food - Okonomiyaki (photo), tako-yaki, yaki-soba, yaki-tori, yaki-niku...and beer.












Festival No. 2 - The Full Moon Festival 満月祭り @ Iritono 入遠野

























More festival food, lanterns dotted along the way into this remote town in the hills (the name of the town literally means 'Entering the far fields'..haha)

There was koto playing (photo), as well as the japanese flute, craft stalls, and 20 minutes of bucketing-down rain as if someone held Niagra falls above this hill town for about half an hour. Fun nonetheless. At least it cleared the sky to make the moon shine brightly ever after.


Festival No. 3 - The Horseback Archery @ Iino Hachimangu

























This was at a shrine near the city centre, and a couple of men put on the whole set of traditional clothing, which was pretty cool to see since it's probably hundreds of years old. At one point I was also slightly awestruck at how hundreds or thousands of years ago people have been doing this, and here we are, in the 21st century, continuing this little historic tradition. On the car on the way back, someone aptly said how Japan is a country of contradictions - in a way its so far forward compared to the rest of the world, yet on the other its modern day culture is rich with its past, and then there are many backward things that just wouldn't be found in any 3rd world country.

The most suitable analogy for Japan is probably their toilets. At one end its literally nothing but a whole in the ground, whilst on the other there are toilets that talk to you and wash your behind at a push of a button, heck it might even make morning coffee and read you your emails.

This place offers so much to fascinate over. I feel it's going to take quite a while to bore me. Might as well - it's not like I'm going to get a job given the current global economic circumstances!

あかべこ

is it a dog? is it a pig? is it a fox?

no...its a red cow.

and its dangling from my phone.

"Tanaka-san teached Japanese at university...."

........wtf....!?!??

that was me. THAT WAS ME. I said that without even realising my mistake until someone pointed it out to me. OMG. They say when you're in Japan, there's a correlation between the rate of improvement of your japanese proficiency and the rate of deterioration of your standard of English....SO ITS TRUE?!??!?

Somebody save me nowwwwwwww!!!!!!!

Summer conversations

"Atsui-ne!!!!"

Pronounced: Ahht-sue-e nehhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's really all you hear all day, especially inside a non-air-conditioned school staff room, with the sun beating down outside on the dusty school grounds, or the clouds trapping the heat and moisture and air.

Plus its super humid.

So sometimes they say 'Mushi atsui ne!!!!!!', with a plastic hand fan on one hand, (a 'Winnie the Pooh' fan in MISTER Watanabe's case...), newspapers on the other.

phone pics

couple more random photos from Aizu..

These are my 'siblings' -- Utako and Yuma



















<=== The trees have eyes.....o_O"""

My Aizu (会津) Family

22-24 August was the language course and homestay weekend in the town of Aizu (会津), central Fukushima. This was my first host-family homestay experience with my new Japanese mum, dad, sister, brother, aunt and grandpa, aka the "Suzuki Family", aka THE cutest and nicest family in Japan....!

the young 30 something parents, cutest 6 and 4 year olds, the most adorable 60 something grandpa and a sweet 20 something aunt adopted me for the weekend whilst i go for a 2 day japanese course at Aizu University (会津大学 - "Aizi Daigaku")

On the first night, shortly after taking me alcohol shopping, they dished out plates and plates of sushi, sashimi, and lots of other weird and wonderful japanese food things, and kept putting food on my plate as if I were a severely underweight celebrity.

Although they didn't take me out or anything after dinner, it was still really cool just hanging out with them, chatting, playing Wii, setting off fireworks at the backyard, and constructing meaningful conversation with my limited japanese, their limited english, sign language and chinese characters!

On the second night, we were adorned with overflowing plates of tempura, as well as more weird and wonderful japanese food things.

Goodbye on Sunday was a bit sad...oh how I'll miss little 4 year old Utako waffling along in Japanese without me understanding a word! And Yuma and his dinasaurs, grandpa playing Wii, and Mrs Suzuki's cooking!!

Amazing weekend!!!

I-wacky!!

Now that I've finally caught up with my 96-hour sleep debt, these posts might just start to make more sense. Or it might go the other way cos this country is just way beyond amazing and I am surrounded by crazy foreigners almost all of the time.

My struggle with the Japanese language doesn't help improve my sanity either.

Since my last post, we have been to the top of the city, 54th floor of the Park Hyatt, New York Bar, re-enacting Lost In Translation with a bunch of freshies; but we've also been down to the depths of Tokyo earth in the metro/underground/JR, zooming around the city in wrong directions and a constant 'LOST' look on our faces.


Wednesday (6/8) - I arrived Fukushima prefecture, Iwaki City, where I will spend the next 12 months of my life, immersing, teaching, freaking, and hopefully befriending.

These are photos of Friday's Iwaki Odori, aka my first Japanese festival! I've also found the new definition of 'Adoroable' that Oxford will never be able to explain

peace x